In clinical environments, such as hospitals, medical offices, imaging centers, ambulatory surgery centers, and other medical treatment facilities, a wide range of medical equipment is used to perform diagnostic, surgical and other procedures on patients. One legitimate concern these healthcare facilities are constantly addressing is the occurrence of complications during a medical procedure on an otherwise healthy patient. For instance, there is the possibly that a healthy patient may contract an infection and/or a viral or bacterial disease from other patients. As a result, more attention is being directed to establishing and maintaining sterile fields about patients and procedure sites during medical procedures.
When a procedure involves a large piece of medical equipment, establishment and maintenance of sterile fields can become a complex problem. While many safeguards are in place in healthcare facilities to address this problem, one area that is often overlooked is the MRI scanner or machine. The environment of an MRI scanner is friendly to infectious agents because the MRI scanner includes a bore having a small diameter (e.g., in the range of 54 to 60 cm) which can become warm, thus providing an environment which promotes bacteria growth. Since patients undergoing a scan must remain within the small bore for perhaps 25 to 45 minutes while breathing and possibly even coughing or sneezing, the interior bore wall surface can become coated with bacteria and viruses. Moreover, due to the length of time a patent must remain within the bore, the interior bore wall surface is often contacted by a patient undergoing a scan and cross-contamination may occur.
In a busy healthcare facility, twenty or more patients may be scanned daily. To prevent cross-contamination from one patient to another if a patient contacts the interior bore wall surface, it is imperative that the bore wall be maintained completely sterile. This can be accomplished in a number of ways.
One way is to fully sterilize the bore wall between each use of the MRI scanner or machine. Typically, personnel of a healthcare facility will spray a decontamination liquid on the bore wall and then scrub the wall. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,093,255 (Smith et al.), the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. However, cleaning can be a difficult process. Due to the length of the bore wall and the difficulty of accessing the entire bore length, portions of the wall can be, and often are, missed. If spots are missed, or if the spray and scrub procedure is ignored due to time constrains, the opportunity for disease transmission is significant. Moreover, ensuring that the interior bore wall is completely sterile is incredibly time consuming.
Another way to maintain the interior bore wall surface of an MRI scanner (machine) completely sterile is to “drape” the interior bore wall. Draping involves covering the non-linear surface to which the patient has access with a sterile covering to prevent the patient from coming in contact with the interior bore wall surface while undergoing a procedure. Prior art attempts have included either adhesively coupling flat, rectangular sheets in layers about the entire interior non-linear surface (interior bore wall) of the MRI scanner or attaching a plastic sheet in the form of a cylindrical sleeve about the interior non-linear surface (bore wall) of the MRI machine. See, for example, U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2003/0181810 (Murphy et al.), 2006/0079748 (Murphy et al.), 2008/0216844 (Olfert et al.), and 2013/0092177 (Chua et al.). The disclosures in those published applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. However, to maintain a sterile field between usages of the MRI scanner or machine in each of these systems, the contaminated sheet must be manually removed from the interior non-linear surface (interior bore wall), another sterile sheet unpacked from its sterile packaging and, thereafter, manually attached to the interior non-linear surface (bore wall) of the MRI scanner. While removing and attaching a sterile cover sheet to the bore wall surface of the MRI machine after each usage of the machine may be less time consuming than scrubbing the MRI bore wall, it remains a labor intensive and time consuming process that reduces utilization of the MRI scanner for extended periods of time.
Thus, there is a need to provide a convenient and reliable way to establish and maintain a sterile field to prevent cross-contamination from patient to patient by pathogens in a medical imaging environment as a result of physical contact with imaging equipment, particularly the interior bore wall of an MRI scanner. Further, it is highly desirable to provide a less labor intensive and time consuming process for covering the interior bore wall of an MRI scanner to which the patient has access with a sterile covering to prevent the patient from coming in contact with the interior bore wall while undergoing a procedure.
While medical applications will be used herein for illustrative purposes and simplicity of discussion, it should be clear to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that applications for embodiments of the present invention are not so limited. Embodiments of the present nvention can be used in any application where non-planar surfaces need to be protectively covered on a relatively large piece of equipment.